National Territory

The legal responsibility for Indonesia's environment continued to be
a matter of controversy in the early 1990s. Among the continuing
concerns were those expressed in 1982 during the UN Conference on the
Law of the Sea. In this conference, Indonesia sought to defend its March
1980 claim to a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. Based on the
doctrine of the political and security unity of archipelagic land and
sea space (wawasan nusantara), the government asserted its
rights to marine and geological resources within this coastal zone. In
all, the area claimed the government, including the exclusive economic
zone, was 7.9 million square kilometers. Indonesia also claimed as its
territory all sea areas within a maritime belt of twelve nautical miles
of the outer perimeter of its islands. All straits, bays, and waters
within this belt were considered inland seas by the government and
amounted to around 93,000 square kilometers. The Strait of Malacca--one
of the most heavily traveled sea-lanes in the world--was considered by
Indonesia and Malaysia to be their joint possession, and the two
countries requested that other nations notify their governments before
moving warships through these waters. The United States and several
other nations rejected those claims, considering the strait an
international waterway.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Indonesia was involved in
territorial disputes. One controversy concerned Indonesia's annexation
of the former colony of Portuguese Timor as Timor Timur Province in
1976, an action which came under protest in the UN and among human
rights activists.

Another dispute involved Indonesia's conflict with Australia over
rights to the continental shelf off the coast of Timor. This problem was
resolved in 1991 by a bilateral agreement calling for joint economic
exploitation of the disputed area in the so-called "Timor
Gap." Still other controversies arose regarding overflight rights
in Irian Jaya (disputed with Papua New Guinea) and conflicting claims to
the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea by Brunei, China, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Indonesia played the role of
mediator in the Spratly Islands controversy.

Even as Indonesia extended its claim to territory, international
environmental groups were pressing Jakarta to accept environmental
responsibility for those territories. Indonesia was encouraged to
monitor pollution in its territorial waters and take legal action to
prevent the destruction of its rain forests. Since the late 1960s, the
government addressed increasing environmental problems by establishing
resource management programs, conducting environmental impact analyses,
developing better policy enforcement, and enacting appropriate laws to
give government officials proper authority. Despite these efforts,
overlapping competencies among government departments and legal
uncertainties about which department had what authority slowed progress
made against environmental degradation.